Over the past 25 years, the web appears to have transitioned from a primarily nomadic culture to a mostly agrarian one, mirroring the Neolithic Revolution 10,000 years ago.

The simplicity of HTML-only site building, spaces like Geocities & Angelfire, and cultural artifacts such as web rings coupled with poor search engine tech saw us navigate the web like nomads: from point to point, link to link.

The web has developed & so have the skills necessary to build within it. HTML was easy. CSS took a little more time & JS more again, alienating most and establishing a class hierarchy. Discovery was solved, weakening point-to-point navigation.

The literate Priesthood can still build & interface with the web, but the vast majority of people are relegated to the peasantry. “Fortunately” for them, motivated benefactors have offered a Faustian bargain to make their lives “easier”.

Corporate Feudalism has emerged to create centralized, “safe” spaces for the peasantry to work & play. Attention is farmed and sold in exchange for convenience, protection, mediated self-expression & an indifferent audience. You can do anything if it’s within their borders.

Interesting observations. I haven’t taught at the university level for around 7 years, so I’m not connected with young designers as much as I was.

I’d be interested to find out how many young, internet ‘nomads’ there are today, building their own ‘handmade’ websites (like this one with WordPress, customized CSS and MySQL) or launching readymade versions with Squarespace (like my portfolio site).

Adobe tells me that about a third of the content product in Flash Professional was actually HTML5 content — so the old name really didn’t make sense anymore. “HTML5 has become the standard and this reflects the tool’s role,” Adobe evangelist Paul Trani told me. “We don’t care what you want to do. Want to do Flash? Fantastic.”

Trani noted that, with some very minor exceptions, HTML5 can now replace Flash for almost all standard use cases that Animate CC’s users were looking for.

I used Macromedia Adobe Flash for many years to make immersive, interactive experiences long before it was even close to possible to do it with HTML and JavaScript.

It’s great to see Adobe get with the times and adjust course with it’s products. I haven’t used Animate CC yet, but I’m hoping it’s good. The need to create interactive experiences and animations is more important than ever in today’s websites and mobile applications.